


The Family Tree

by Gigi_Sinclair



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, M/M, Minor character deaths (old age)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-13
Updated: 2016-11-13
Packaged: 2018-08-30 19:51:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8546878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gigi_Sinclair/pseuds/Gigi_Sinclair
Summary: While mourning his wife, Brendol Hux meets a stranger who isn't so strange after all. Sequel of sorts to The Way to a Man's Heart. Written for Angst November Day 13: Family.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hux and Ben's son looks, of course, like [this](https://66.media.tumblr.com/0ed08a174786997b86ab5e9dd1e3706c/tumblr_oaggiu36K41qd1qmwo1_r1_250.gif).

Maratelle's tree is on the farthest edge of the memorial forest, butting up against the base of the mountain. It's the quietest quadrant, the most isolated, and Brendol chose the location precisely because of that. He likes to be alone when he comes here.

Normally, he gets his wish. He's particularly irritated, therefore, when a voice calls out, “Mr. Hux?” loudly enough to scare the bird he'd been watching. With an indignant caw, it flies away, and Brendol frowns.

He ignores the voice, hoping that this rude person will go away if he responds with equal rudeness. They don't. Footsteps draw nearer and again, the voice says, “Mr. Hux?”

“It's Commandant.” Despite the teasing, not always friendly, he endures from the other veterans, who claim Brendol “took the easy way out” by spending his career in the Academy rather than on the front lines, that is his earned rank. He insists on being called by it, always.

“Sorry.” The person—a young man, it seems—comes to stand at Brendol's side. Brendol glances over, long enough to see simple clothes, a brown tunic and pants, and tangled dark curls, hanging in a long, girlish style nearly to the man's slender shoulders. His face carries least two days' worth of stubble. Brendol snorts derisively. Not a former student of his, then. Of course, any former student would have known better than to address him as “mister.” “Sorry to bother you,” the man goes on. His accent is purely New Republican, although that's not as unusual here as it would once have been. Since the First Order was crippled—Brendol will never say _defeated_ , not while there's breath in his body—slimy Republicans have begun to ooze their way into the Outer Rim, keen to see what they can squeeze from planets to which their beloved Resistance has already laid waste. “I went to your house. Your protocol droid told me I could find you here.”

“You must have said something remarkable to it,” Brendol replies, coldly. That, or the old thing has finally lost the last of its marbles. It's been growing increasingly erratic of late, offering Brendol a juicy roast and brandy for breakfast, for example, and buttered bread with blue milk for dinner. He needs a new one, but he's loath to pay for it. “It knows I value my privacy.”

“I'm your grandson,” the man says. _Well_ , Brendol thinks, _I suppose that would do it._

He turns to take in the man. There is Kattia in his face, there's no denying it. And now that Brendol knows, he can see his son-in-law Ben in the man's thick, black hair. Brendol has never met his son's husband, but he's seen holos over the years.

Brendol shifts, shoving his hands into his pockets. At once, he takes them out again. “What brings you here?”

“I came to see you.” The young man smiles, big and wide. That's so much like Kattia that Brendol gasps involuntarily. He covers it up with a cough, which goes on perhaps longer than necessary. “Are you all right?” The man asks, concern in his big eyes. _Weak_ , Brendol scoffs to himself. Of course. With a father like his, how could this boy be anything else?

“What about your parents, hm? They know you're here?”

The smile wavers, and Brendol knows the answer. “No. But I'm an adult, I can do what I like.”

“Fair enough.” A wind, chillier than expected, passes through, ruffling the leaves. Two fall from Maratelle's tree, spiralling to the ground at their feet. “What do you want from me, then?”

“I don't want anything.” That can't be true. Everyone wants something. Brendol learned that very early on. “Well, I wanted to meet you.”

“Why? I don't know you. I haven't even seen your father since he was four years old.” Brendol remembers him, though. Little Armitage, scared of his own shadow, spoiled rotten and weakened by his doting mother. Brendol had loved him anyway. How could he not?

“I know my grandmother Kattia sent holos.” She did, images of Armitage and his husband and then, after a few years, of their two sons, conceived by science and grown in a lab like droids. “You know my name.”

“Hm.” Brendol grunts in acknowledgment. He knows, and he doesn't understand it. He never did. Surely, Ben must have had a father, if they really wanted to honour the Arkanian custom of naming a child after its grandparent?

“I'm named after you,” the young man, Brendol Organa Solo, says anyway. “I would like to know something about you.” Organa Solo looks at the tree in front of them. “This is your wife's gravesite?”

“Memorial tree,” Brendol corrects him. “We don't have resources to spend on burying the dead here.” Like everyone, Maratelle was cremated. Her funeral pyre burned for one full day, sunrise to sunset. Brendol was by her side the whole time. Then, as was customary, he and her friends purchased and dedicated this strong, tall tree to her. A little plaque sits at its base, engraved with the dates of Maratelle's birth and death and the phrase, “Beloved wife and cherished member of the community.” Brendol doesn't know what will go on his memorial plaque, when the time comes. He's not even sure who will take on the task of ordering one.

“I like that tradition.”

Brendol scrutinizes Organa Solo for any trace of sarcasm, but finds none. He hesitates, his old, arthritic hands clenching into fists at his sides, then says, “They're all right? Your parents? Still together?” Kattia was good about sending updates, at least once a standard year or so. When she died, they naturally ceased. Brendol has thought, once or twice, about sending a message himself, but why would Armitage respond to him?

“Oh, yes. Dad's planning to retire soon, or so he says. I'll believe it when I see it.”

“Your dad, that's...”

“Armitage. He owns an engineering design firm on Naboo. Did you know that?” Brendol shakes his head. The last he heard, Armitage was working for someone else's company on Coruscant, catering the family Life Day celebrations once Kattia grew too old to do it herself. “My other dad, Ben, loves it there. His grandmother was from Naboo, so he's spending a lot of time researching her life. He wants to write a biography. And his uncle is trying to get him back into the Jedi way of life now that my brother and I are grown.”

“Jedi?” Brendol's eyes fly up. Kattia never mentioned that. “He's a Jedi?”

“Not since before I was born.”

“And you...” Brendol peers at him, as if it's something one can see, like a brand on the skin.

“They made sure I wasn't. Designed me that way.”

An advantage to a lab-grown baby, Brendol supposes. He's always considered any child of two men, or two women for that matter, to be unnatural by default. Still, looking at his namesake, Brendol's suddenly not sure that's a word that really applies here. Organa Solo's resemblance to Kattia is so strong, it's hard to see him as a total biological aberration.

“They were good parents?” Brendol asks. He doesn't know why. It doesn't affect him, or reflect on him in any way.

Organa Solo frowns, as if considering this. “I guess. I mean, I don't have anything to compare them with.” Of course. It's a stupid question. “But they love me. And I don't always make it easy for them, I can tell you that.”

“No.” Brendol believes it. He was like that himself. Difficult. He still remembers the look on his poor mother's face when he admitted he was expecting a child with their own kitchen maid. “I don't know what Kattia told you,” Brendol says, “but I would have had him. Armitage. I would have kept him, raised him myself.”

“She knew that.”

“She didn't think I was good enough, no doubt.” He would have done his best, he and Maratelle both. She had wanted children, in a detached sort of way. He can't say he was heartbroken that none came, but it's not like he forgot his existing son once he was taken away. Every class of cadets reminded him, made him wonder what his own boy was like, and what he could have been, if Brendol had been given the chance to mould him.

“I don't think it was that.” Organa Solo looks around. “Do you have other relatives with memorial trees here?”

“My parents. Two older brothers.” Brendol coughs again, genuinely this time. “You have a younger one," he says, clearing his throat. "Brother, I mean.”

“That's right. Luke.” Brendol remembers a long ago holo of a fractious-looking ginger infant with a red face, clinging to Armitage's still overlong hair while Ben held their slightly older boy, this boy, on his shoulders. “He's studying to be a medic,” Organa Solo adds.

“That's good.”

“My parents certainly think so.” There's a hint of bitterness to the young man's tone. Brendol can sympathize. Although, as the third son of a great house, he had been expected to join the army, his father nevertheless looked down on such work and on Brendol for doing it. His father's idea of a true gentleman was someone who could afford to be idle. He didn't have the money to allow Brendol this luxury.

“What do you do, then?” Brendol asks.

Organa Solo shrugs. “Not much right now.”

“Well, you're young. You'll find something that suits you.” It's a remarkably lax worldview for Brendol, but he doesn't have time to be surprised at himself.

Organa Solo reaches into his satchel and pulls out a necklace. Brendol doesn't recognize it at first, but Organa Solo unwinds the chain, and there it is: a simple flower, twisted out of wire with a blue stone at the centre. He'd bought it for Kattia. He remembers it clearly, as if it were yesterday. Standing at a little stall in the market, taking the advice of the old saleswoman--who had no doubt spotted a sucker a mile away--because he was too lovestruck, young and stupid to have any idea what Kattia would like. It had worked. Kattia loved the necklace, even though she wasn't permitted to wear it while she worked, and she was always working.

“My grandmother gave me this before she died,” Organa Solo says. “I thought you might like it back.”

“Keep it.” Brendol doesn't hesitate. “If Kattia gave it to you, she must have wanted you to have it.” Although it's been a long time since he felt he could speak on Kattia's behalf, that seems obvious. “If you want, one day you can give it to someone you love.” Brendol's voice cracks on the last word. He looks away, staring at the tree in front of them, willing the boy not to have heard it.

For a moment, Brendol is afraid Organa Solo is going to protest, to press the issue in a way that will be embarrassing for them both. Instead, he nods—Brendol can see that much out of his peripheral vision—and returns the necklace to the satchel. “Would you show me the other trees?”

“What?”

“Your parents have trees here, you said. And your brothers. Could I see them?”

Brendol turns to look at the boy, transferring his stare to him. It's a powerful stare, he knows that. He built a career on it. “Why would you want to do that?”

“They're my family, too.”

He isn't wrong. Their blood flows through Organa Solo's veins, as thickly as it would any grandchild Brendol might have had with Maratelle.

“Come on then.” Brendol strides away, at a brisk marching pace. Organa Solo, he's pleased to note, keeps up easily, his posture perfect and his arms at his sides. _Might have another soldier in the family yet,_ he thinks.

“My father's tree is nearest here.". Then, because he feels like he should say more, Brendol adds, “He was a bastard. Not the way your father is, in the literal sense. My father was a figurative bastard.” It's a joke, although it's also an accurate assessment of both Armitage Huxes, Brendol's son and his father. Organa Solo laughs, buoying Brendol and encouraging him to continue. “They have the same name, did you know that? A grandchild named for the grandparent. Arkanian tradition. My father hated it, of course. Thought his precious name should have been saved for a legitimate son, but my eldest brother Eamon shot practice rounds his whole life, if you take my meaning, and my middle brother Gervaise was like your fathers, only interested in men. He had a, what do you call it, a boyfriend I suppose, when we were young. My parents didn't know about that, but I caught them at it in the old gazebo one afternoon when I was about ten.” It made ideal blackmail fodder. Brendol didn't do his own homework for a very long time after that, not until Gervaise left home.

Brendol keeps talking as they walk, sharing family stories he's never told before. There's never been anyone to listen. Maratelle, he's sure, would stop him, tell him he's being a boring old fool, but Organa Solo listens intently, laughing at the funny parts and asking questions when Brendol pauses for breath. They visit all four trees, Brendol's parents' and his brothers'. By the time they've finished at Gervaise's, the sun is setting. The caretaker droids, respectfully painted light blue, the colour of mourning, are making the rounds and reminding people the forest will soon be closing for the night.

“Come back to the house,” Brendol orders. “We'll have dinner.” As soon as the words are out of his mouth, he regrets them. The boy doesn't want dinner, not with him. He wants to go home, no doubt. He came here to spite his parents, or something, and now that his job is done, he'll want to leave as soon as possible. Brendol is a fool to expect otherwise, a complete ninny...

“Sounds great,” Organa Solo breaks into Brendol's internal tirade. “My shuttle's not until morning. I don't want to impose, but if you wouldn't mind giving me a ride to the inn in the village after dinner...”

“You could stay with me.” Another impulse. Nobody's slept in the guest room for years. Even when Maratelle was alive, they rarely had overnight visitors. But it would be an easy enough thing to get the droid to set it up, provided it will listen to instructions. “I know young people," Brendol goes on, justifying the offer to Organa Solo. Justifying it to himself. "Spent my life with them. Never have a credit to their name. You don't need to be wasting money on a hotel.” Again, the doubts creep in. “Unless...”

“No, no. You're right. I'm broke.” Organa Solo smiles. “Thanks...Granddad.”

Brendol huffs, his moustache fluttering. Emotion. A Republican habit, but of course, he can't expect anything else of his grandson. “Step lively now,” he commands. “And you can comm your fathers when you get to my house. They need to know where you are. They'll be worried.”

As they head toward the forest gates, the wind returns, stronger than last time. It passes over the trees, bending them slightly, and a shiver snakes down Brendol's spine. It's the height of sentimentality, but as the breeze passes through the branches, he can almost feel the whisper of a kiss, as if he's fallen asleep in his armchair while grading dismal cadet papers, and Maratelle has brushed her lips across his forehead before going up to bed. If he concentrates, he can all but smell her flowery perfume.

 _What utter nonsense_ , Brendol thinks. _Complete rubbish_. But, as he and young Brendol follow the carefully marked path out into the city, he also thinks, _thank you._


End file.
